Illustrations, surface pattern design & handmade goods

What glorious weather yesterday! I decided it’d be a good idea to do my artwork outside, and it was lovely indeed (even if my kitten did try to “help”)!

Jennifer Orkin Lewis is one of my fave Instagramers – she’s #augustwren if you don’t already know – so when I saw that she was doing a 30 day painting challenge via Creativebug I just had to have a go!

I came to it a little late, hence being in catch-up phase. Jennifer’s class on Creativebug takes you through daily prompts, and the exercises are not intimidating – especially as Jennifer makes it all so easy for us to recreate her style if we want.

DAY 4: PRESENTS

I chose to keep to a simple, 2-D style for this one. I used cheap chalky watercolours which were fun, but which did not like me trying to add mixed media over it! Oh well…

DAY 5: CUPCAKES

This one is my favourite so far – I really had fun with it. I used my Schmincke Akademie paints for this one so the results were much better for the initial watercolour sketches. I added Micron pens on top and a bit of white gel pen to give the cases a bit of texture.

DAY 6: MUSHROOMS

I used the cheap chalky watercolours again for this one, in Autumn colours, but again I had trouble afterwards (I tried to add watercolour pencils over it but it just kept pushing up chalk dust). Micron pens saved the day again!

If you’d like to see my process painting these three images in my garden (plus see Kitsu, my kitten, being cute) then check out my Youtube video…